How to market an electrical business or how to grow a small electrical business are the questions that pop into your head when you have just entered into a competitive market.
Being a competitive field, electrical business is also demanding. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of electrical contractors is expected to grow by 9% between 2019 to 2026.
To keep up with the competitors, it is important to have a proper electrical business plan plus effective marketing strategies.
Impact of Incorporating Marketing Strategies into Your Electrical Business Plan
To grow your small electrical business, it is essential to consider effective marketing ideas while creating a business plan. It helps you enhance the online presence while gaining more potential customers.
A strong contractor marketing plan is a solid answer to your question on how to grow a small electrical business. Here are some of the best small business marketing tips to drive your electrical business to success.
Compelling Marketing Ideas for Electrical Contractors
1. Build and Maintain a Strong Brand
You are the face of your brand.
That’s why it is important to build and maintain a strong brand. It is a direct reflection of what your potential customers should expect from you.
Branding is one of the vital parts of successful small businesses. It gives the first positive impression on your audience and helps stand out uniquely among your competition. Along with these, you can see other benefits of branding your business in the below fig.
In marketing, there is one rule “brand building one step at a time.” Being an electrical contractor, to survive in a competitive market, knowing how to establish a strong brand is necessary. Follow the steps mentioned below to build a strong brand, and you are all set to start a successful electrical business.
Now that you know the steps to create the brand successfully, it’s time for brand awareness (marketing). Your audience should know about your business strong point. The website is the most essential marketing tool you have for business growth.
2. Create a Great Electrician Website Design
Website designing is significant because it impacts how your potential customer notices your brand. The first impression you portrait in front of your audience can either convince them to stay on your website page or leave and turn to competitors page.
According to a survey, users take approximately 50 milliseconds to form a decision about your website. Also, 38% of people will stop visiting a website if the content or layout is unattractive.
Good website design for your electrical business helps you keep your potential consumers on the page. Ensure creating a growth-driven website design. It means that the website landing page should be attractive, fast, flexible, and focused. The website design shown below is the best example of it.
After knowing the importance of having a robust and engaging website design, it is equally important to have an idea about what a website landing page should contain. This is because the landing page is the vital element of lead generation for your electrical business.
Developing an eye-catching electrician website design alone cannot drive traffic and leads. For website traffic, local SEO i.e. Search Engine Optimization plays a big role in the electrical contractor marketing plan.
3. Set Up Your Website With Local SEO
Once you develop user-friendly website design, now it’s time to rank your electrical business site on the web. That means when users search for electrical services or products available on your website, they can see it as soon as they type the relatable keywords.
Here Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a huge role in enhancing your electrical contractor website to better the chances of it to rank locally on Google search engine result pages (SERPs).
Local SEO for electrical contractors is cost-effective advertising, which is much more than just getting a higher ranking. It’s about bringing more clients to your business. Following are the things included in a complete Local SEO package:-
- Market analysis of your service area
- Finding local competitors
- Examining monthly volumes and search terms
- Auditing citations for all online directories
- Editing and creating new citations
- Managing and directing local listing…
Along with these, there are many more activities involved in local SEO services. For details, hiring an expert SEO campaign manager is the best idea. Getting relevant customers plus leads is not limited to SEO marketing.
4. Invest in Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
If you have a great budget and want to drive instant targeted traffic to your website, then PPC ads are the best for your electrical business plan. It is paid advertising, which means buying traffic with online ads. You can generate more sales and curative leads with pay-per-click advertising.
According to a recent study, PPC is one of the best marketing ideas for electrical contractors, as it helps connect with a wider audience online. In this, you have to bid for your ads appear in the sponsored results when someone types query including your keywords. You only have to pay for the ad that users click.
Let’s look at an example. When the audience searches for “electrical contractors San Diego CA” in Google.
You can see from the above screenshot, paid ads in the red box are displayed in the search engine. These ads can be above, below or on the right side of the local search results.
When you ask how to grow a small electrical business investing less time, PPC advertising is the best option for small business marketing. Don’t get confused regarding spending the marketing budget on SEO or PPC. Decide as per your electrical contracting business plan.
Wondering how to generate leads for your electrical business spending less money? The next strategy is your answer!
5. Consider Google Local Services Ads for Lead Generation
If you are searching on how to win electrical contracts with no sign-up cost or obligation to take part, then Google Local Service Ads is the definite choice. It is known as the pay-per-lead advertising platform started by Google for businesses to generate leads.
Executing local service ads will ensure that your business is Google Guaranteed and genuine with proper licenses and certifications. Also, customers will easily rely on your business, knowing all the staff or workers have gone through a background check to earn the “Google Guaranteed badge.”
Whenever users in search of an electrician in your area will type related keywords in Google, local service ads will trigger on top of the search results.
Tip: To enjoy the maximum benefit from this ad format, maintain a high review rating plus strong brand awareness in your local area.
Overall, considering low-cost lead generation and the absence of extra costs, you can surely rely on local services ads for your small electrical business marketing.
6. Include Blogging into Your Electrical Marketing Plan
No strategy, no skill work until you have the engaging and organic content on your electrical website. The real power of content is determined when you gain more clicks to your blogs or an increased number of visits to your website. Regular blogging with high-quality images is the key to improving your company’s Google ranking. Along with these, there are other benefits of blogging which you can observe in the below figure.
The main purpose to include blogging into your electrical marketing plan is to provide regular, relevant, and informative content on your website. Google rewards sites that publish consistent and educational content, providing value to visitors.
From improving conversion rates, generating inbound links to improve conversion rates, blogging is helpful from all angles. Also, blogging enhances your electrical business online presence via social media.
7. Get into Social Media and Win Electrical Contracts
Social media helps you elevate your electrical business online presence. This is because recently the usage of social media in the United States is noted 79% of the population. It means approximately 247 million people are social media users as of 2019. So, we can say that social media is the best way to connect with potential customers.
A proper social media marketing plan is required covering keyword research, creating engaging content, promotion strategies, and much more. Through a perfect advertising plan, you can win several electrical contracts while increasing website traffic and raising brand awareness.
Social media marketing or SMM is all about creating and sharing content on social media networks to achieve branding goals. Below are some top 5 social media channels, pick one or more to deliver your business strong points towards targeted customers.
You can post text with HD images, videos, and other content that boosts audience engagement. Also, paid social media advertising is a cost-effective way to promote your electrical company.
8. Develop and Track a Video Marketing Strategy
Your electrical business is all about showcasing skills and techniques while resolving electrical issues. So what can be a better way to represent your electrical services than video marketing. It helps you to promote your business online because nowadays more people are interacting with videos than before.
From the below image, you can see the rising importance of video marketing for business success. Videos are the captivating way to foster your engagement, which results in click-through rates, shares, lead generation, and sales.
Develop a video marketing strategy keeping in mind your electrical business goals. You can include content related to your services or USP of your business in video. Sharing your video via several social media channels or emails helps you convert visitors into customers.
Creating and sharing video alone is not enough for long-term success. You must track the performance of your video strategy via YouTube or Google Analytics. This way, you know the faults and key points lacking behind in your video marketing. However, you can improve it with proper market analysis and planning.
9. Add Customer Service in Your Electrical Marketing Strategy
Your whole electrical business success revolves around customer’s responses, decisions, and reviews. Customers will respond to your actions rather than verbal promises. That is exactly why customer service should be part of your electrical marketing strategy. It helps you reduce business costs, increase revenue, and repeat customers.
As per statistics, 7 in 10 Americans said they would spend more money on companies providing satisfactory customer service. Through great service, customers keep coming back to your company and refer others for the same. Purchase
From social media, email to website live chat process, customer service is a significant part of the marketing strategy. You can create a loyal and happy customer base which helps your electrical business development and growth. However, delivering outstanding customer services is also the best way to gain positive reviews.
10. Attract Organic Customers with the Power of Online Reviews
The power of online reviews is remarkable as it can make or break your business. According to the study, 90% of customers read online reviews before visiting a company’s website. Hence, online reviews help your electrical business stand out firmly in the competitive market. More benefits of online reviews are shown below.
Having positive reviews on your electrical business website is beneficial as the possibility of customers getting attracted to your firm increases. But one negative review can ruin your company’s impression. So, how to track and handle online negative reviews?
There are various online review sites that can be a ladder to improve your business visibility online. These review sites can support you in monitoring an online reputation where consumers can take an informed decision about any product or service.
Apart from these, there are other review generation platforms like Broadly Reviews, Podium, Grade. Us, Shopper Approved, and much more. Likewise, it helps you collect 5-star rating reviews enhancing your business growth.
11. Convert More Electrical Clients with Call Tracking and Analytics
If you are marketing or communicating with customers via phone, then call tracking is a vital element for your electrical business success. When incorporating with your other marketing strategies like SEO or paid ads, call tracking describes how customers are finding your business.
Call tracking is the conversion tracking for your inbound calls. But, what are inbound calls? It is when a customer calls your company requesting a particular service or product. We can say it is the same as we do mailing lists sign-ups or service registrations, online sales to different campaigns.
Through a call tracking system, you can monitor and qualify inbound calls. No matter how many ad campaigns you are running for your electrical business, call tracking and analytics play a major role. It determines whether to use a single main-line tracking number or multiple phone numbers for multi-channel tracking.
If you have a small electrical business, one main-line tracking number is enough. Overall, considering call tracking software helps you improve customer experience and cut costs. As a result, you can convert more electrical clients towards your business.
Focus On What Works For You
There is a wide range of marketing strategies for your electrical business, which helps to increase customer base and revenue. The above mentioned are some top 11 marketing ideas for electrical contractors. Moreover, they are the best answers to your question, how to grow a small electrical business. Do not hesitate to implement any of the advertising tactics for your electrical business plan. Instead, focus on what is best for you and your business.